The Fading Candle
by Lachdannen
Summary: Some nightmares repeat themselves . Written for the Aria's Afterlife October 2014 writing contest, just not finished timely.


_**Preface: **This was intended to be a my Halloween entry for the Aria's Afterlife 2014 October Writing Contest. I didnt' finish it in time for that due to, well, life, but I did finish it. It's probably not as polished as some of my other things, but here you go. Warning: this is a bit grim, pushing depressing. This was working off a prompt: _. _My wife woke me up last night to tell me there was an intruder in our house. She was murdered 2 years ago by an intruder. _

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><p>Kaidan kicked the stone steps, snow falling off his boots before he reached for the door handle, and stepped inside, away from the biting wind and frigid temperatures. Heat washed over him as the door closed, and started converting the snow that had stuck in his beard to water before he could even finish taking his coat and boots off.<p>

The fire crackled and popped hungrily, and he settled down in front of it, letting the heat push back the bitter cold that had leached into his bones. Winter this far north had a tendency to be rough, but this year the weather seemed to be particularly inhospitable. The heating unit for the small house could handle it, but there was just something about an actual fire helped to make the house seem just a little less empty.

A pang of guilt jabbed at his heart. Two years. Two years, and it still hurt. After surviving one hell after another in the war, it just didn't seem fair.

Kaidan looked up at the wall opposite him, and the picture hanging there. Invisible fingers squeezed his throat as he stared into her eyes, tightening till he couldn't breath. He shoved himself to his feet, coughing as he looked away.

He wouldn't cry. He didn't have any tears left.

The whiskey glass clinked as his shaking hand set it on the counter, and the amber liquid slooshed as he poured. Kaidan turned, looking back into the other room. He couldn't see the picture from here, but the memory of her eyes burned into him. He raised the glass and drained it in one go, the alcohol searing his throat all the way down. He refilled it and drained a second glass before he could change his mind. It still burned all the way down, but less than the first. He set the empty glass down, placed his hands flat on the counter and closed his eyes.

_"I still can't believe you convinced me to move all the way out here," Ashley said as she lowered the bag of groceries to the table. "Dozens of different colonies in the Alliance, and you just had to live in the backwoods of Canada." _

_He smiled and set his own bag down next to hers, and shucked out of his jacket. "It's nice up here. No one will bother us." _

_"Because there is no one for, like, twenty miles. We have to go an hour one way to get supplies," Ash countered, and passed him her coat as well. She started unloading the packed bags, stacking the accumulated supplies on the table so they could be sorted and put away. _

_Kaidan's smile just widened as hung the heavy winter coats up, before he turned back and started to snag things off the table, tucking them into the appropriate shelves. "If we were on a colony, you'd say we were too far from your family and that you never got to see them. We can go visit them whenever you want. And they do live somewhere warm." _

_"Oh, shush. I'm complaining over here," Ash grumbled half-heartedly. "I don't need your pesky logic." She let out a little breathless gasp of surprise, and her hand dropped to her swollen stomach. "Okay, ow." _

_Kaidan stopped, setting the can down on the table and stepped over to his wife, his partner through so much hell and high water. He set one hand gently against her stomach, his fingers spread slightly. Ash's hand settled on top of his, as the baby kicked again, just little vibration he could barely feel. His smile widened into a full grin, and he looked into Ashley's eyes. _

He didn't remember pouring the third drink. The liquor burned as it went down, searing away his ability to feel pain. The next two burned out his memory, or at least the ability to remember for a time. The sixth let him stagger towards the bedroom, secure in the fact he wouldn't wake up till morning, not even for a Reaper.

Kaidan lay on the grass, his arms folded behind his head, the warm light of Sol filtering down through fluffy white clouds. Somewhere nearby a dog barked in that way only a excited hound could express itself.

Ashley's head lay against his chest, her body pressed against his side. One long finger traced down his sternum, sending a tingling sensation zipping across his skin. She tilted her head, her dark eyes searching his face. "You know this is a dream, right?"

Kaiden shut his eyes, wishing he could block out her words. That was what the whiskey had been supposed to do.

Ashley pushed herself up, her dark hair cascading down in a sheet on one side of her face as she leaned over him. "I love you."

Three words. They hit his heart like a hammer and chisel, spiderwebbing cracks through his entire being. It felt like little chips of his heart tore away from the whole, rushing through his bloodstream, shredding him from the inside. He lay there, unable to pull his gaze away from her eyes, dark orbs that seemed to radiate love, sadness and loss in equal measure.

"I love you, Kaiden Alenko. It wasn't your fault." Ashley said. Her hand touched his cheek and he leaned into it. The touch of her skin on his face, even just a dreams memory, felt like cold water on burned skin.

"I should have been there," he whispered, not even trying to hide the grief that ripped into him. "I should have-"

"Sssshhhh … You didn't know. And even if you had been there, you might only have joined me." Ashley said, the words quiet, urgent and intent. "You can be a real jarhead sometimes, you know that?"

Tears trickled down his face, liquid pain that his soul couldn't contain. The ghost of his wife ran her hand along his cheek wiping away the tears.

"I know it hurts. But you have to wake up, Kaidan. Someone's in the house, and you have to wake up." Her hands cupped his face, as she forced him to look up at her. "Wake up, Kaiden. Wake up!"

Sunlight screamed as it's hue changed from brilliant white to angry red. Kaiden felt his bones hum in response to the roar of an angry god, screaming it's judgement just like they had in the war. He curled away from the glaring red iris and it's hate, his hands covering his ears as he tried to blot out the sound.

"Wake up! Kaidan, you have to wake up!" Ashley screamed, just before her voice rose to an agonized screech. The thunderous howl blazed towards him in scarlet light.

Kaidan sat up, panting, the world spinning like an unbalanced merry-go-round. Shadows flooded the room, the only light reflecting off the snow outside. He looked around, listening to sounds of the empty house: the clicking of electronic, pipes creaking, the door thumping closed.

The door?

Kaidan eased out of bed, his hand pulling on the night stand drawer and retrieving the pistol he kept there. Muscle memory let him check the thermal clip, check the ammo block and flip the safety off without even needing to check in the his brain. And considering the storm surge of fury in his chest, that would be important.

Someone was in his house. Just like before. Just like when Ash had been here, alone. His mind replayed bits of the nightmare in vivid detail. The scarlet pool of blood on the white floor so sharp in contrast you could have cut reality with it. It'd severed his at the knees.

Kaiden stepped into the hall, the shadows of the house reaching for him, brushing him with spectral hands as he moved down the hall. No lights. He didn't need them. He knew where everything was in the house. The lights would just warn the bastard they were about to leave this mortal coil.

The whiskey from earlier in the evening sang in his blood as his pulse pounded in his ears, making the gun shake unsteadily in his hand. The hall stretched on for an eternity in front of him, some kind of extra dimension in space and time. Utterly wrong. For a frozen moment, it felt like the dream had come pouring into reality, the night had become real. Then his hand closed on handle for the kitchen and he froze.

Footsteps squeaked on the floorboard in the kitchen. Kaiden looked down, shadow of the intruder passing in front of the door. He hesitated, closing his eyes. The bastard had come back. The same bastard that had sent his world crashing to into flames and ashes had made the mistake of thinking the house would be same to hit against after two years.

_No. Not this time, you fucking bastard. I'll kill you. I'll kill you and that'll be it._

Before he could finish thinking the concept through, his body took over. The door to the kitchen slammed open, the room a blur of colors and motion as the gun in his hand tracked to the only other person in the room, someone who shouldn't have been there. He heard a gasp of surprise, and his finger closed on the trigger.

It bucked once in his hand, a pulsing flash of light and sound. A thump as something hit the floor.

_It's over. It's fucking over. You bastard just got what you deserved._

Kaidan's pulse hammered in his head like battle drums, his shaking hand slapped at the light switch. The soft illumination flooding the room, the revealing light of the sun to blaze down on the accused.

The harsh light of the kitchen's overhead lamps cast his face in shadow as he looked down at what he had wrought.

The expression of startled pain on Sarah William's face joined the horrific cavalcade of nightmares that already haunted his thoughts and dreams. Kaiden stared down at her, his limbs locked in place like someone had bolted him to the floor as the scarlet pool stained the kitchen floor for the second time in his memory.

The floor rushed up to meet him, and it seemed like her accusing eyes followed him as he fell, dragging him down with wordless judgement to the pits of hell that were waiting to welcome him to their fiery embrace.

Ashley's voice murmured in his ear, accusing and venomous. "What have you done?"

His trembling hand looked down at the gun, his fingers quivering almost spasmodically as he looked down at the pistol as the words reverberated in his mind, stabbing like climbing spikes into every crevice they could gain a foothold in.

Ashley would be alive if he'd been there. And Sarah he'd killed with his own hands.

The gun slipped from his hand, dropping to the floor with a hollow leaden thump, and Kaiden sank to the floor, dragged down by invisible chains.

"You failed to protect me, and now, you killed my sister." Ashley's voice seared into his mind as imaginary spectral fingers brushed the back of his neck. "My little sister. She was here to check on you, like she's done nearly every week for the last month, and you killed her for it."

The words sank into, the venomous taunt burned at him, a sullen agony that propelled him to his feet. He staggered back, squeezing his eyes shut against the image that tried to burn it's way into his memory with the rest of nightmares and evil dreams.

Her voice followed in his wake. "And where are you going to go? You can't run from this one, dear. And you can't drink it away. So what are you going to do."

Kaidan's hand closed on a handle and he yanked the door open, staggering through before his body registered the biting cold. Snow and ice whistled and shrieked by him as the blizzard lashed and raged it's fury over the countryside, and for a second, the wind ripped the the voice away from him, a blissful moment of numbing relief.

"You can't get away from what you've done."

The whisper burned like someone had pressed a hot coal to the back of his neck and he flailed away from the sensation, staggering towards the peaceful numbing embrace promised by the snow.

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><p><em><strong>AN: **Well, that was...grim. This isn't cannon for any of my stories/timelines and I don't intend it to be. It was mostly a writing exercise working off a prompt, that went terribly horribly grim, at least compared to most of my stuff. But as I can't stand unfinished things...*shrug* _


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